


To the walls I've built around you.

by absenthium



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Angst, Gen, Implicit Jesper Fahey/Kaz Brekker, Implicit unrequited crush, Inej being wise, Jesper and Inej being friends, Jesper being a bisexual mess, Kaz being himself, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rivers, and also very sad, basically just some sad stuff, jesper centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22258309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absenthium/pseuds/absenthium
Summary: -Maybe it means something that we're here.- and perhaps it really does.He likes to believe it is actually wrong for her, at least for her, to be in Ketterdam.He's not sure if it is true, or if he's just trying, once again, to avoid the inevitable.Maybe he's still nothing but a kid full of vain dreams.-Could we have been happy?-"If we didn't end in here. If we were luckier. If we never met, I guess."Inej doesn't answer. She hugs her knees, letting her head rest on them, and finally she lets out a soft “Maybe.”Jesper would like to think having met Inej makes his years wasted in the Barrel worth something. But the truth is that he misses home, and the river is not enough.Maybe he really is crooked.-How about him?--I don't think Kaz was meant for happiness.-
Relationships: Jesper Fahey & Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker & Jesper Fahey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	To the walls I've built around you.

**Author's Note:**

> hello my old heart - the oh hellos

The river ripples in concentric circles as the rock touches the surface. Jesper exults, when it disappears under the water, almost on the opposite edge.  
He turns to Inej, a proud grin on his lips. She stands on her feet, arms crossed, a little flat stone on her right hand.  
-D'you think you can do better, Wraith?- Jesper challenges her, jokingly. She shrugs, walking a few steps closer to the river's edge.  
-Taking aim is supposed to be your thing, isn't it?- Inej asks, as she throws the rock in the water.  
His smile widens a little. -Is it a way to admit that, somehow, I'm better than you?-  
-Not what I said.-  
Jesper casts the last pebble, and sits on the ground, the hard soil of the riverside, just a less than a meter over the water. For a moment, he allows himself to close his eyes, carefully listening to the roaring of the river, becoming one with it.  
For just a while, he's almost able to feel it. Impetuous waters caressing his skin, the coldness, the joyful rush of the journey to the sea. Almost life.  
The river, itself, is nothing much but a small creek in an uncrowded street of Ketterdam's suburb, yet it feels like more. It has something mighty, a soul of its own.  
Alive.  
And, of course, it is theirs.  
Jesper doesn't really recall the day Inej and him had found that hidden, distant corner of the world. But he recalls the calmness. A comforting silence among the clatter.  
Ketterdam was a city made of ashes, and blood, and deafening screams smothered in the middle of the night. It didn't belong to neither of them.  
Yet, the river was peaceful. Inej and Jesper started coming there, from time to time, until they made it a tradition. Their own sacred bound. It was a place made for promises.  
He glances at the girl sitting next to him in stillness, the same that has granted her the name she holds as a battle scar, a useful yet unwanted trophy.  
As she realizes he's observing her, she looks right back at him.  
Inej's eyes have the power to make him feel vulnerable. Because she knows him, she can **see** him, and it feels both alarming and oddly reassuring.-Do you think thing could've been different?- Jesper asks.  
_For us. For our lives. We don't belong in here._  
-Maybe it means something that we're here.- and perhaps it really does.  
He likes to believe it is actually wrong for her, at least for her, to be in Ketterdam.  
He's not sure if it is true, or if he's just trying, once again, to avoid the inevitable.  
Maybe he's still nothing but a kid full of vain dreams.  
_We would've never met_ , he reasons, and asks:  
-Could we have been happy?-  
_If we didn't end in here. If we were luckier. If we never met, I guess._  
Inej doesn't answer. She hugs her knees, letting her head rest on them, and finally she lets out a soft “Maybe.”  
Jesper would like to think having met Inej makes his years wasted in the Barrel worth something. But the truth is that he misses home, and the river is not enough.  
Maybe he really is crooked.  
-How about him?- he finds himself saying out loud. His voice quivers a little. He does not name him, because there's no need to. Because his sole presence in a phrase (a thought, a shadow, something to prove he's real) is enough to change the quietness into a loud, desolated silence, to make the air in their lungs feel heavy.  
Kaz doesn't need a name because, somehow, he's everywhere, and they know, Jesper knows, that he's nothing but a ruin, and yet he still allows him to slip into his mind.  
He wishes he could say he's at least trying.  
-I don't think Kaz was meant for happiness.-  
Inej is probably right, but that doesn't make it sound less wrong. There's a naïve part of Jesper that still refuses to understand that, if Kaz had ever been human, that human died long ago. He's always been too much of a dreamer.  
-I know.- he breathes out, and he means it, but it hurts, it hurts like hell.  
Inej points her gaze on the water. There's something constantly unspoken about her.  
He lets his arm slide around her, carefully surrounding her, as if he's afraid he might break her. Her hands climb along his back, and it feels just right, for her fingers to find place on his neck, her fingertips gently touching his skin, as he holds her tighter.  
Jesper buries his face in Inej's shoulder, hiding, hoping for the world to be reduced to this. Does Inej think about him, once in a while, as she prays her Saints?  
So close that he can feel her breath.  
-I wish we had never met.- she whispers.  
-Me too.- he answers. Maybe he means it.  
The river roars, hidden among the dust of a city made of noise, among their nothingness, as the hold onto each other. Barely life.

***

Jesper dreamt of the river.  
It was recurrent for him, something laying in his mind. A need.  
In those dreams, he would stand in the stream, next to a boat. Small and imperfect, but his, his and no one else's. It feels like liberty, like a chance, a way.  
In most dreams, Inej is right next to him, helping him push the boat into the river's water. They sail, away from the world, and Jesper lets out a joyful shout, and he wants to cry, because they made it, they made it, they made it.  
Some nights he's weak, and he dreams of Kaz.  
Firm steps in the water, a glimpse of leather gloves, hungry eyes, Kaz's mouth breaking into a laugh.  
Jesper's fingers brush Kaz's cheek, moving on his forehead, on his lips, drawing gentle lines on his skin, tracing a map for all of his breaths.  
He fixes his gaze into his, looking for a meaning, for some truth.  
Kaz closes his eyes. Hauntingly beautiful.  
-There's a storm coming.- he says. Grey clouds approaching the shore, raindrops finding place on them, surrounding them.  
Jesper wakes up.

***

  
Kaz's eyes make Jesper powerless. There's something about them, cloacked in the dark circles of his irises, something frightening, and terrible, and hopeless. Something else.  
No one watches the world the way Kaz does, no one stares at events with the same pragmatism, the same conviction in the value and future on every action. Sometimes, Jesper wishes he could see in the same way. Maybe that would make Kaz talk to him, consider him capable, valuable. _What do you want?_  
He wants nothing from Kaz, that's what he likes to think, that's the same old deceit he keeps poisoning himself with. _What do you want?_  
His compassion. His approbation. To make him laugh. His eyes fixed on him, a gaze, just once. _What do you want?_  
Jesper's life is on a battlefield. Fights, and runs among the streets, and the euphoric feeling of a gun in his hands. And he's good at it, damn if he is.  
Jesper mind is a battlefield. A wasteland of disguised silences, uncertainty, faint prayers against the mattress, for _one more day_ , just one.  
It serves nothing to be the best shooter among the Dregs when what you're fighting is in your mind.  
Does Kaz fight the way he does? Does he bleed as he does? Does he lay sleepless at night because the beating of his own heart keeps him awake?  
He shouldn't want to know.  
Jesper stands in front of him. Another empty conversation. Meaningless words, spat out hurriedly, like time was running out. Another lack of destination.  
Can Kaz even give voice to his thoughts? Everything he says feels void, a tearing quietness of unsaid sentences. Does he even think anything more than what he speaks about? _What do you want?_  
-Wait- he pleads, and Kaz turns towards him.  
-What, Jesper?-  
And Jesper walks one, two, three steps to him, and one more, reluctant, wondering if it could be too much, too close. If it could make Kaz go away.  
But Kaz doesn't, so he leans towards him, imperceptly closer.  
Jesper's finger brush Kaz's cheek, and something stops.  
Kaz freezes, eyes wide open, then reduced to a slit. A thunder beneath his flesh, into his veins, each muscle of his tense. Trying not to get away, to let anything leak out, not to seem horrified, because he can't see, he doesn't **want** him to see.  
Something stops. Maybe it's their hearts.  
Jesper's lungs seem to be emptied of all the air they contained, when Kaz slaps his hand off his face.  
It's not even much of a slap. More like an impulsive, uncontrolled movement. A pray. It shouldn't hurt the way it does.  
-Don't- Kaz breathes out, softly, almost unhearable. He could drown, in that single wishper. He feels like he's been holding his breath for years.  
-Just. Don't-  
He's shivering.  
Jesper feels a metallic taste invading his mouth. He doesn't even recall biting his lip. He swallows his words, his apology, along with his own blood.  
Still, a monument of movements he can't control, and reflections he can't avoid, and phrases he doesn't know how to put in order. He senses the fear, an overwhelming world of thoughts and feelings, getting louder and louder, trying to suffocate him.  
For the first time what he really is scared of, he realizes are his own shaking hands.  
Still. Kaz discloses his lips to talk, he reconsiders, and then he's gone. Out of the room, with only a fading remembrance of hesitant fingertips placed on his skin.  
Jesper gasps, searching for air to fill the hole in his chest, tired, too tired and way too awake. He breathes in, finally, his heart restarts beating.

  
The river is not enough.

**Author's Note:**

> It took me exactly 30 days to write this story, which may be a lot of time, but perhaps what actually matters is that it is over.  
> I'm not sure what I wanted to do with it. It started out as an exercise, because I'm trying to write a little bit more in English [it isn't my first language and, by the way, if you find any grammar, feel free to tell me about it, it would be really helpful]. Also, I recently read Six of Crows [finally!] and I'm reading Crooked Kingdom and I'm definitely in love.  
> What did it became? I have no idea.  
> It is placed a few years before SoC, so before all the mess. Basically, it is based on Jesper and Inej's friendship [I really love the idea of them being good friends] and Jesper being a bi mess ting to deal with his kind-of-crush on Kaz 'cause. C'mon. Who doesn't have at least a little bit of a crush on Kaz. I mean.  
> [yes, pretty much some of my random & dumb ideas about Leigh's beautiful characters].  
> So yeah, here we are. I had a really good time writing it so I hope the story was good too.  
> See ya'll.  
> E.


End file.
